Week 2 September 10th-12th

During Week 2 of the course we discussed Nicholas Carr’s The Shallows, the idea that “The Medium Is The Message” and Idealism vs Realism.

Carr’s book does a lot of talking down and is at time heavy handed in its lecturing but he makes a couple of good points. His argument is that our attention span has been drastically reduced and we simply don’t have time (whether we really do or not) to read through articles, books, or web pages. Several classmates said that it was redundant or repetitive and in some way I think this kind of proves his point. He mentions how he used to be able to read long detailed arguments and that now merely skims them despite also criticizing oversimplification. There was some element of that in our classroom discussion.

“The Medium Is The Message” was a little difficult to understand at first. I couldn’t really see why texting and being able to text and all that it implies, is any more meaningful than all the things you could say in a text message. In the grand scheme of things, in the context of the history of computing and digital media, I can see its importance.

Lastly,  Idealism vs Realism was an interesting topic. I think I’m much more of an idealist, that the ideal exists and must be pursued but can never be attained. There’s definitely a sense of romanticism in that. The overloading of information and reality that we get from the internet as Carr might put it, makes an escape much more attractive.

 



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